Posts Tagged ‘cakes’

The Fabulous Baker Boy cafe at the foothills of Fort Canning Park has gone through a renovation and is now more comfortable than ever before because it is now TOTALLY AIR-CONDITIONED! I visited once several months back prior to the renovation and despite the cafe looking really nice and like a place I would want to spend my time chilling out in, chilling out was the last thing on my mind due to the sweltering heat. This time round, when I visited with my colleagues, it was a much more pleasant experience, with us being able to look out into the gardens and to enjoy the views minus the heat.

The Fabulous Baker Boy cafe is one of those cafes which I would consider to be all-rounded cafe, meaning they’re good at cakes, coffee and food! You can’t run away from the baked goods here, it’s quite obvious from the name of the cafe wouldn’t you agree? I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of Chef-Owner Juwanda assembling his cakes together, and I could sense a serenity and contentment in him as his fingers deftly put together pieces of sponge and cream into the finished cakes. Quite different from when I’m trying to ice my cakes, I can tell you that.

Cake cake cake cake cake galore! I couldn’t decide on which irresistible cake photo to put up first so I decided to put up a group shot first! And that is the dilemma you will face when you step into The Audacious Cakery! All of the cakes look so exquisite and mouth watering! It was lucky we got the opportunity to sample it all, or I should have a hard time choosing.

There’s Sharryl Ng, co-founder and Executive Pastry Chef of The Audacious Cakery and her husband on the left of the photo. I love meeting people who have great passion for the food that they create. When food, or cakes in this case, are made with love, short cuts and mediocre ingredients are not used in the name of profits. I could never imagine myself selling stuff I didn’t believe in.

The Audacious Cakery bakes it cakes and pastries daily on site and to maintain its quality and freshness, a limited quantity of each product is produced each day.

The Audacious Cakery has 4 main offerings, ie Cakes, Cupcakes, Tarts and Macarons.

With a name like that, is it any wonder that this cafe located at the foothills of Fort Canning Park is crowded all the time? The place is pretty unique. For one, do you remember the old River Valley Swimming Complex? After the River Valley Swimming Complex was abandoned in 2003, the place was left pretty much disused, until the pools got filled up in what is now known as The Foothills Fort Canning Park. The Fabulous Baker Boy is situated at the Viridian Art House building, which was the former canteen of the swimming complex!

If you’re visiting Fort Canning Park for some exercise, you might like to give yourself a treat at the end of your walk by having a cuppa and some cake at The Fabulous Baker Boy. In fact, that was exactly what we did several Saturdays ago. I know it sounds like a total waste of the exercise if I were to be eating cake directly after, but look at it this way. I’m going to have cake and coffee ANYWAY, so shoving in some hill climbing and brisk walking just before I eat my cake can only be a GOOD THING.

The only thing is, it can get crowded on the weekends (like which cafe isn’t full house on weekends these days) so brace yourself for a long wait or no cake after the walk. Oh, it can get a little hot here as there is no air-conditioning.

Let me tempt you with some pictures of the cakes first. They look so darn luscious I want to have a piece right now as I’m typing this! This here is their Nutty Monkey cake which retails for $85 per cake or $8.50 per slice. 2 slices “free” if you buy the whole cake. Cakes are getting really expensive these days!

Whenever I discover a cafe located in the East, I feel pressured to blog about it immediately for the benefit for all of us poor souls living in the Eastern side of Singapore. Really, there have been more than 60 cafes sprouting out in Singapore just this year alone, yet precious few located in the East. I can name you the “cafe regions” off the back of my hand : Robertson Quay, Duxton Hill, Everton, Dempsey, Jalan Besar, Tiong Bahru, and Holland Village / 1 Rochester. Apart from Jalan Besar, which is next to Lavender and may arguably be considered to be in the East based on the MRT line, everything else is Central or West! Ok I guess the people living in the North are suffering as well, but then you people have Grub at Bishan – Ang Mo Kio Park!!

Ok to cut to the chase, BackStage Cafe is the new kid on the block, located in the industrial estate area of Kallang. Industrial estate may give you this feeling that you have to wear hard boots and hard hats to get here, but relax, the building that it is in is an office block. The great thing is that if you come on Saturday (they are closed on Sundays), the entire area is a dead town, so you are assured of peace, solitude and ample parking! I visited on Hari Raya but as you can see from the picture, it’s not a jammed packed claustrophobic place. Oh gosh, whenever I think of 40 Hands and Chye Seng Huat Hardware, I feel a headache coming on. Backstage Cafe is probably the most spacious cafe I can think of, although I recall Toby’s Estate in Robertson Quay has super high ceilings as well.

Wanted to go to Grub at Bishan – Ang Mo Kio Park last week, but we arrived at 2.10 and were promptly told that the restaurant closes in the afternoon from 2.30 – 5pm!! We twirled around the area a bit, found a place for lunch where I managed to find a stall selling Kuay Chap for only $3.50. Some how ended up in the Ang Mo Kio area and spied Pine Garden Cake Shop. I’ve never known the existence of Pine Garden Cake Shop until last year and I was quite surprised to find that the cake shop gets quite a following thanks to the nostalgic cakes that it sells.

I have no idea whether the cakes that they sell are exactly the same as what they used to sell years ago. Actually, I think the cake flavours are pretty modern, even if the cakes themselves are decorated and creamed like in yesteryear. What’s for sure is that the cakes sure are darn cheap!

Nostalgic Rainbow Cake $1.50

Each slice of cake is around $1.30 – $2.50. In an era where cafes are charging double digit for their cakes, it’s nice to be able to indulge in cheap cakes without robbing the bank. What’s better is that you can have several slices if you can’t make up your mind. Is that having your cake and eating it or what?